I had a shit day today. One of those days where there is so much to do and the overwhelm of all that needs to get done paralyzes you.

I did nothing.

No, that’s not true, I did laundry and I cooked meals, and planned birthday stuff for Ben, but I did nothing as far as my projects or career goes.

I hate days like today. They make me feel anxious and panicked and like a failure.

That’s the truth.

In therapy I am working on sitting in these feelings. Finding compassion for myself. Being okay with it.

It’s fucking hard.

I don’t feel like a person on most days. A lot of times I find it difficult to understand why I even exist.

I have no money of my own. No bank account. I have projects just floating around not landing where I need them to land. Or where I think I need them to land. I often feel like I have no voice or platform.

I stopped coaching because I truly can’t help anyone but myself right now. No coaching means no income.

My body has made it near impossible for me to get a real job. Sitting or standing for any longer than 20 minutes leaves me in excruciating pain. Pain that I don’t even know how to describe to people. Pain that makes me feel even more like a failure.

I can’t help but think of how fucked I would be if anything were to happen to Ben.

What would I do? How would I survive?

I’m trying hard not to think of death as the escape plan from all of this. I don’t know how to explain to people why my brain goes there still. I don’t have an understanding of what it’s like not to be this way.

My therapist tells me people who have experienced trauma, brains work differently. We’re wired in a different way. The trauma caused a glitch.

Sometimes I think my trauma is bullshit. But it’s not. It’s real. And there is a lot of it.

She asks me to find compassion for myself in these moments. Because it’s not my fault.

Coming from the healing world, the law of attraction world, i’ve been believing all of this is my fault for years.

I’m choosing this. I chose this. I created this. This is because of me.

But maybe i’m just wired differently. Maybe things that happened, things that I experienced, changed things in my brain.

Maybe it’s not my fault and so maybe I can find some compassion for myself.

I did the laundry today. I cooked all of my meals and dinner for Ben and I. I brushed my teeth and planned some stuff and wrote this.

It’s only 6:30. There’s still time for more things to happen and be done.

And maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. But all of it is okay. And none of it defines me.

I’m searching for my voice in a sea of loud opinions. A million differing choirs all shouting that their way is the right way.

I don’t know when I lost myself in this. How in the search for my own intuition I gave it up to a bunch of people who believe that they know what’s best for me.

Did I ever know what I needed or wanted? Have I always been driven by everyone else?

This is the problem of being a seeker. There will always come a time when you have to confront who is you and who is them and what got messed up and meshed up and made you lose yourself.

Or maybe there won’t always come a time. Maybe this is just me, because that is what I’m learning in letting go of all those other voices, or at least trying to, that my experience is my experience and no one else’s.

That what’s good for me, may not be good for you, and that is the only real shared truth I can guarantee.

That regardless of how much it sucks, I can't have someone else hand me a map on how to live my life and find happiness.

But, how do you find your voice again when you’re not sure you ever knew it in the first place?

How do you tap back into your truth when there are so many people screaming into the void what they want your truth to be?

I’m trying to find my voice. I’m trying to shut those people and things out, but it’s hard.

Social media makes it hard.

Trying to stay informed and empathetic makes it hard.

Being a seeker makes it hard.

Being a human who has been molded and trained and shaped by habit, and environment, and life makes it hard.

I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but I’m working on it.

Trying.

Listening.

Working on being present, in my own life, with my own pleasures, and my own thoughts and opinions.

Working through any shame or embarrassment or guilt that comes up when my real self shows herself. Likes what she likes. Does what she needs. Believes what she believes.

That is my main intention or resolution or whatever you want to call it for this new year. To get back to me.

To own who I am in a way I never have before.

To allow my voice to be the leading voice, the guiding voice and to tune out all the other bullshit noise the best that I can.

It is no surprise to anyone that 2017 was a rough year for me. Just read any post I’ve shared in the last 365 days, including the one I wrote last week. With that said, there was also a lot of good that happened this year and since the good is something I don’t talk about as much publicly, I felt like I should highlight some real highlights.

Moved back to Brooklyn and fell back in love with New York

Found an incredible and magically affordable apartment in Ditmas Park, thanks to facebook and old yoga friends

Moved down the street from Danielle

Became completely obsessed with our neighborhood

Ben left Buzzfeed and got a new better job as Lead Writer/Director at Some Spider Studios

Re-wrote/majorly edited the BINGE: my story, manuscript twice

Sent it to an agent who has been working with me on it for over a year now

Started a new podcast/project “The Body Talks Back” that will drop sometime in early 2018

Went back to therapy

Spoke to Health Classes at an all girls Catholic High School on long island about my story, mental illness, and eating disorders.

Saw my friends regularly

Helped my mom reclaim her house (it looks incredible y’all!)

Decided to stop coaching for a while, which may not seem like a good thing, but is a relief for me

Genuinely helped the people who I did coach

Murray got married!

FINALLY placed in the Scudellistmas Gingerbread (Graham cracker) house competition!

Wrote the first draft of a script for a web series idea i’ve had forever

Made a home

Started blogging again

Put some stuff out into the world even tho it scared and embarrassed me

Read some real deal inspiring books both as a writer and a human (Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton, The Upside of Unrequited & Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli, tbh I didn't read all that much this year but what I did shook my world)

Gained some new creative idols (Julie Andem, Becky Albertalli)

Stopped denying the fact that writing and creating is the way I want to help myself and others and is really the thing that I want to do with my life

Tried and kept trying no matter how humiliated I felt or how many times I “failed”

Wrote A LOT

Walked 4 miles to Coney Island from our apartment on an incredible fall day

2017 has been a rough year. This is not news. It’s been rough for pretty much everyone I know. And how could it not be? Everyday feels like the end of the world. The 24/7 news cycle is filled with almost nothing but despair.

And It’s too much.

It’s all just too much.

It’s not a surprise to me that this has had an effect on the personal lives of almost everyone I know. Life is hard. It’s a lot harder with the bombardment of trauma and terror. It makes it feel impossible.

So for me, like everyone else, I’ve struggled more this year than I have in a long time.

I haven’t really wanted to write or share about this because when I have, I’ve felt embarrassed and ashamed.

My inner dialogue when I have posted anything has gone as follows:

You are a joke

You look like you just want attention

You sound like you are just complaining

You don’t have the right to talk about this stuff when you're struggling so badly

You are a failure

YOU ARE A JOKE

And over and over it will repeat til I’m stuck in the fetal position on the couch.

So I stopped sharing so much.

Sharing is part of my healing process and I took it away from myself because I couldn’t bare the humiliation my head made me feel.

And also maybe sometimes sharing isn't necessary or needed.

Still, I sunk deeper and deeper into depression. And I couldn’t believe how strong and unrelenting this depression was.

And I felt more like a failure because JESUS CHRIST! AREN’T I BEYOND THIS?!??!

I scared my husband who’d come home from work everyday to me crying.

I’d lock myself in the bathroom sobbing not letting him console me.

I’d zone out into some TV show and be unresponsive.

Anything to not be present.

I felt stuck.

I felt lost.

I was angry.

So fucking angry.

At God and myself.

I’VE WORKED SO HARD WHY IS THIS HAPPENING??? WHY IS NOTHING MOVING FORWARD IN MY LIFE??? WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THIS?!?!?!

And lastly I lost hope.

To strive for a career in writing or even health and wellness you have to have a level of faith and hope. You have to have patience. You have to be willing to roll with the punches and the slow times.

You have to be willing to get up and show up and try and keep trying and be willing to be embarrassed and be willing to fail and be willing to make mistakes and then get up and try again.

I prided myself in never losing that level of faith and hope. That sure things were moving soooo slowwwwllyyy, but they were moving and something somehow would eventually hit and things would start happening and my dreams would come to fruition in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

I believed it always. I could feel it in my soul. It was my guiding force.

Things will work out, things will work out, things will work out.

And then this year came. And with it, all the trauma. And all that political and “Me too” trauma reflected my own internal trauma and it took me down.

And for the most part, I hid it, and suffered in the privacy of my home.

Depressed again.

Hating my body again.

Angry at God again.

Wanting to die again.

So there, now I’ve said it. Admitted it publicly. I wanted to die. I was once again, 13 years after my last suicide attempt, suicidal.

I never would've acted on it, I trusted myself enough to know that. I wasn’t 16 year old or 19 year old Sara. I was 32 year old Sara and I wouldn’t do that again. Not to myself. Not to Ben. Not to my family.

But still, I wanted to be gone. I wanted it to be over.

It was too much. Everything. my life, the world, the political climate, my body, my pain.

Too much.

Too much.

TOO MUCH!

And I felt like I was suffocating and I didn’t know how to make it stop.

I’d hang out with friends. I’d keep up with my projects that I was working on. I’d do my health coaching work. I’d live my life.

And no one would know.

And then I’d go home or be home and fall apart.

Embarrassed.

Humiliated.

How could this be happening again?!

HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENING AGAIN?!?!!??!

And then the holidays started. And I dreaded them, knowing I'd have to pretend more. But was grateful that my sister had chosen to host Thanksgiving this year and the most we'd have to travel was walking ten blocks.

The morning after, Ben and I went to have coffee with her and my mom at her apartment.

Everything was normal. Regular chit chat and then seemingly out of nowhere I started talking, and the talking turned to bawling, and it all came out.

The anger the depression the frustration the hopelessness the tears and snot.

And my sister said the thing I needed to hear. Especially from someone like her, who had also been struggling, but used this resource to keep her head above water.

“Dude, you NEED to talk to someone.”

I needed to talk to someone. I needed to go back to therapy. I hadn’t been in consistent talk therapy in a decade.

I’d used healers and yoga and meditation teachers instead.

And they helped and were necessary and needed.

And after 15 years of therapy a break was also a million percent needed. Big time.

But it was time to go back. I needed help. Consistent help.

I needed to hand the burden of 'too much' to someone else. I needed to stop trying to do everything alone.

I needed to rebuild my faith and my trust.

I needed to rebuild my hope.

I needed to rebuild myself.

I had lost myself in always trying to fix myself. Always trying to meet some healing quota. Some self acceptance and compassion quota.

I needed to stop and hand it over.

Two days later I found a therapist.

A week later I had my first session. I was nervous. Finding a therapist can be a nightmare. I know this from years of experience. But I knew immediately. I had found her. Found the therapist I needed.

A therapist who isn’t trying to fix me, or push me to fix myself, but be there with me. Help me. Support me. Guide me back to myself.

And already the hope is coming back.

Because you CAN’T do this alone and you don’t need to.

And your family and your friends and even your partner can’t really be the ones to help. They’re living their own “too much”. They can offer support and love, they can be there for you, but they can’t take on the weight you’re carrying.

That’s for you and a trained professional to manage.

And I knew this. I’ve known this. But sometimes you forget and that’s okay because eventually you’ll remember. Or eventually the right person will remind you, during that exact right moment, when you can hear it and take it in.

So now I'm sharing again, to let you know, that me too man, the ‘too much’ of 2017 got me too.

And this morning I told my last client I won’t be coaching for a while, because I can’t help anyone else but myself right now.

I am often embarrassed to write or speak about my struggles. I get scared of coming off looking like I’m trying to get attention, or whining, or any of the millions of other things my ‘still cares too much what other people think’ brain comes up with.

How will I get clients?

What if people stop being my friend?

Do I even have a right to be trying to help people when by all accounts I am falling apart?

I don’t know why I have to heal in public, but I do.

I don’t know why I need to share and speak about the real things that I’m going through, but I do.

I guess that part is not entirely true. I do know why. The why is because of the people who reach out to me after reading, thanking me for letting them know they aren’t alone. For the stories that I hear about others struggles and the stories that I hear about how shared experience helped them heal.

Healing.

That’s why I do this. That’s the number one reason. For myself. For others.

Writing helps me. Sharing helps me. So I have to keep doing it, because of all the things I do, this is number one on my, ‘soul’s purpose’ list.

I can handle the embarrassment or the possibility of turning people off or away from me. I’ve been dealing with that level of humiliation my whole life.

So here is the deal, I am deeply struggling and maybe because I do share my struggles so often it seems like, ‘Okay? And what’s new?’ and maybe that’s true in a way. Maybe I am always struggling a bit, but in general I have it under control.

I use my tools.

I reach out for help.

I do what needs to be done.

And always ALWAYS I lift myself up.

Every year I go through at least one serious bout of depression. It’s never at the same time. I can’t predict when it’s going to come on, but it always comes.

Welp, it’s here.

And it’s been here for quite some time. Like, way too long.

And honestly maybe it’s not even been here for as long as other times, but right now, while I’m knee deep in it, it feels like it’s been lasting forever.

For almost all of September and the first week of October, I was sick with bronchitis and other infections. It forced me to go to the doctor. Something admittedly I’m not great at getting myself to do.

Not because I want to stay sick, just because I most of the time believe I can heal without western medicine. I’ll take herbs from an acupuncturist before I step foot in a doctor’s office (which is what I did and unfortunately this time it did not work).

I hate going to the doctor. I spent all of my youth in doctors offices.

I hate taking medicine. I spent all of my youth taking around 15-20 pills a day.

But the thing I hate the most is that inevitably I know we will be talking about my weight.

I get blind weighed and honestly, so should you. A number should not dictate how we feel. If there is a problem your doctor will tell you, no need to add that anxiety to the list of shit we deal with on a daily basis.

Unfortunately for me, the digital scale my doctor used did not turn off by the time I was on the table. The scale sat there glowing green with that number staring me in the face and I hate to admit it, but it got to me.

It’s an insane thing that a mostly meaningless number can have such an effect. I don’t even think it’s an eating disorder thing. Ask any human and for the most part their weight matters to them, the number matters to them.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

At this point I had been sick for three weeks, was already depressed and in a vulnerable state. When the numbers shined back at me, I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself, “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay.”

Two days later I had a complete breakdown.

My weight, those numbers, were the tipping point.

In this depressive state it was another sign that I had failed.

Now, before you step in here and try and tell me that I did not fail and am not a failure, please know I know this. The difference between reality and depressed reality is huge. I am aware. I am simply sharing the truth of what came up for me at that moment.

I am beyond the point of thinking that I would ever harm myself. The need to binge has been gone for a long time. The thought of killing myself is so far from something I could ever imagine doing again.

I am not suicidal, I repeat, I AM NOT SUICIDAL, however I want this part and this time and these feelings and this overwhelming sense of nothing ever happens for me and everything I do is a failure, to die.

I NEED it to die.

For obviously many reasons but the main one being, it’s not the truth.

Logically I know I am not a failure. I know that success in the career path I’ve chosen takes time effort and luck.

I know that there have been many things beyond my control going on with my body, things that are not my fault.

I know that I am, even in my depressed state, still pushing forward and doing the work and coming up with new ideas and new projects. I even have a new project in the works that I am legitimately incredibly excited about.

At the same time, I am overwhelmed and exhausted and lost and confused and unsure that my dreams will ever come to fruition. I don’t know. I hold on to faith and trust, but I’m getting older and sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s time to throw in the towel. It’s hard and scary to think that someday there could be a time when that happens.

I don’t have a plan B for my life. Being a writer and a person who helps people is it. Getting to a point where I feel good and confident in my body (no matter what size I am) is necessary. Being a person with a voice who wants to be heard on a large scale will always be wanted.

These are the things. This is the future I strive for and it’s scary to think that I may never achieve any of it.

At this point I am not ready to throw in the towel and I will keep trying and putting myself out there and doing new things and dealing with the embarrassment I feel. I know this.

Right now though, right now I am struggling.

I am depressed.

And some of it is situational. A lot of it is due to the state of the world and the country and the fact that every single day it’s non stop terror and tragedy.

I am often too plugged in to the news cycle. But it’s hard not to be. Too much is happening. It’s too much and too overwhelming and it’s making it really hard for me to get out of this depressed state.

So, I’m sharing.

Because, I woke up this morning and didn’t know what to do so I asked myself, “What action step can I take to make myself feel better? To get myself off twitter for a min. To stop watching our asshole president sign away our health care with an executive order. To stop reading more allegations of sexual abuse. To stop looking at images of devastation in Puerto Rico and reading the rising death toll number. To stop seeing that video of white supremacist’s beating the shit out of one of their own in order to blame it on an innocent black man. To stop hearing that prison warden or whoever he is complain about how they’re “letting all the good ones out” in reference to black inmates who he admittedly proclaims they use as worker horses (ie modern slaves). What action step can I take to get away from all of this for a moment?”

And I opened google docs and started to write. Chose to share. And already I feel a bit better, which is all I could ask or hope for.

It's a dark and rough time for many. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. There are a lot of people struggling with depression right now.

To those of you experiencing this, I am with you, I see you, and I am certain we will make it out to the other side of this.

Please share, it doesn't need to be public, but find someone to talk to. Go to a therapist. Reach out to a friend or a loved one.

Hi, the world and this country and this planet are in a crazy ass place right now and everything often feels stressful and scary and sad and terrible. I've also been sick with a cold for over a week which has caused me to get a bit down and uninspired.

SO! What I keep feeling called to do is share a tool that I use to get out of a funk. I've shared this before, but it is worth repeating.

Gratitude Lists!

Writing gratitude lists and focusing on what we have, instead of what we lack, can change your whole day.

Right now, while everything seems to be crumbling down around us I think it is imperative to keep an eye and focus on the things that we have to be grateful for.

I guarantee you if you sit down for five minutes and write one out you will feel a shift.

Here is mine from today:

I am grateful for my life

I am grateful for my family

I am grateful for Ben

I am grateful for my friends

I am grateful for my cats

I am grateful for my home

I am grateful for my Discover Weekly Spotify Playlist

I am grateful for music

I am grateful for writing

I am grateful for my home

I am grateful for my marriage

I am grateful for my clients

I am grateful for any client I have ever worked with

I am grateful for my need to help people

I am grateful for my need to help myself

I am grateful for growth

I am grateful for my need to write

I am grateful to be able to reach out for help

I am grateful to be able to reach out to myself for help

I am grateful for all of my teachers in all of their forms

I am grateful to be a seeker

I am grateful to be a doer

I am grateful for my need to share

I am grateful for all of my tools

I am grateful to be tuned in

I am grateful for my relationship with God

I am grateful to no longer be scared of the word God

I am grateful for my evolution

I am grateful for my past

I am grateful for my present

I am grateful to be working everyday to become more present

I am grateful for meditation

I am grateful for my safety

I am grateful for my open ever expanding mind

I am grateful for my support system

I am grateful for the love I am surrounded with

I am grateful to have a roof over my head and food in my belly

I am grateful for my belly

I am grateful for my body

I am grateful to get to know my body

I am grateful to be building a relationship with my body every day

I am grateful for my friends

I am grateful for this gratitude list

I am grateful for parents who inspire me

I am grateful for friends who inspire me

I am grateful for a husband who inspires me

I am grateful for my sister

I am grateful to be strengthening my relationship with my sister every day

I am grateful to be living down the street from her

I am grateful for my neighborhood

I am grateful for New York

I am grateful for fall

I am grateful for cool air

I am grateful for a car

I am grateful to be learning to put down my defenses everyday

I am grateful for my willingness and hunger to learn

I am grateful for this blog and my ability to share and connect to people

I am grateful for my life

Doing these lists, especially if you do them regularly can create great change in how you feel. Honestly right now we all need all the help we can get to feel better.

I repeat this over and over and over again at least 100 times a day no exaggeration.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

The newest affirmation given to me by my healer. My healer who I trust beyond anyone I have ever worked with. Every therapist, doctor, meditation or yoga teacher, anyone.

Sometimes I think I trust her more than I trust myself.

I am healing. I’ve been healing. Learning to love myself. Learning to trust myself. Learning to accept myself. Learning how to be in my body without wanting to escape it. And it is a process.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

This affirmation is different than the others. I’ve gone through many.

I am safe in my body.

My body is a temple of love.

It is safe for me to be seen heard and recognized.

So on and so forth.

I believe in these affirmations. I believe that they were sent to me through my spirit guides, channelled through my healer. I believe. I believe. I believe.

And I am working on the healing. I am trying to be patient. I have come so far from where I used to be. So far. It’s true. It’s fact. I know it. I feel it. I see it.

But I am healing, I am not healed. Is anyone ever healed? I don’t know. I do believe you can let go of an issue. Move on from pain. Move forward. I believe. It’s true. I do.

This morning and every other morning before that, over the last couple of months, and maybe more, I find myself hating my reflection.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

Pulling at my skin in a way that I thought I had left behind.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

Asking my husband, why am I still fat? Why do I look fat? Why do my clothes all look like shit? How how HOW could you be attracted to me?

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

I work with people who are in recovery from Binge Eating Disorders. People like me.

People who are sometimes in the beginning or sometimes needing guidance on how to move forward in mid recovery. And I tell them.

Acceptance is key. Meeting yourself where you’re at is key. Understanding that you are good enough in this moment is key. Striving to love who you are and what you look like right now without conditions is key.

And all of that is 100% true.

And I give them the self forgiveness meditations that were given to me. And I give them affirmations much like my healer gives me and I hold their hands and I help them heal and I tell them I promise it gets better. Because it does.

It does get better. It is better. I am much better than I was.

And then I look in the mirror at my naked body and cry. And I go to the gym and I cry. And I panic over the food I ate and I cry.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

When will this ever go away? Will it ever go away? Will I ever have a good relationship with my body? Am I really capable of helping people?

Yes. Yes to all of it.

Yes, because that hateful voice has gotten so much less hateful and present.

Yes, because I can walk out of the house in a tank top and not have a panic attack.

Yes, because I have helped people, I AM helping people.

Patience.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

Healing is a journey. God, I want to punch myself in the fucking face sometimes when I say that. Because fuckkk it’s hard.

FUCK!!!!

I want it to be faster and smoother. I want to feel better now. I want to feel FULLY better now. I want to make true peace with my reflection. With my body. With myself.

I want to stop calling myself unworthy or a loser or second guess every blog post, instagram post, facebook post, twitter post, or photo.

I want to stop thinking I am less than other people or thinking that everyone else is thinking I am a joke.

A joke.

That is how I feel a lot of the time. In my isolation. In my trying to figure it all out. In my starting a business that is slow to pick up. Writing a book that is slow to pick up. Writing a blog that is slow to pick up. Everything.

Everything feels so slow. As slow as the healing process.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

So I shout to the Universe, to God, to the Goddess, to myself.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

Even when I don’t believe it.

I am loved. I am safe. I trust. I am open. I allow.

I repeat repeat repeat and it works most times. It keeps me from the spiraling out. It makes the reflection a little easier to overcome. A little less painful. It takes away most of the power of that part of me that wants to stay hidden and in pain. That part of me that doesn’t believe I deserve success or to be seen heard and recognized. It reminds me that I am safe in my body, in my life.

And It works about 90% of the time.

And some days I just scream it out because I have to, because maybe it will work again today too.

So, I’ll keep repeating because it’s what I’ve got right now. The tool that seems to be helping the most.

And I’ll keep believing or pretending to believe when I can’t access the real believing.

September has always been my favorite month. Well, maybe that’s a lie.

Probably, when I was in school September had a mixture of feelings for me. Ones of fear and anticipation and excitement and annoyance. But regardless, one thing has always remained true, September has always been a month of new beginnings.

September is my new year and my guess is it’s probably yours too.

September holds the feeling of a turned page, a new chapter, way more so than January 1st.

September is change.

New weather, new school year, new layers of clothing, new air, new plants, new food, new light.

It is the time of year when I have the most tangible access to the feeling of a fresh start.

I missed the newness of September when we lived in LA. On the west coast September is one of the hottest months, in some areas of the coast it is when summer truly begins.

Without school and season change it had lost it’s excitement for me. I yearned for it and hated how it felt, no matter how in love I was with LA and California. I felt robbed of my new beginning.

I’m an East Coast girl at heart and my emotional and physical life relies on seasons.

This is my second September since I've moved back and as you can probably guess I was elated for it to begin. I was ready so ready for it. But when it started everything felt off.

We’ve been in a mercury retrograde for a month now and even though I knew this, that the first week was in the midst of it, a retrograde intensified by an eclipse, I still held on to my excitement. Mercury retro couldn't touch September in my mind. Except it did and my 'new beginning' excitement became overshadowed by a bit of chaos and confusion.

I couldn’t quite access the feeling that I rely on when the season starts to change. Even here in NY when the weather has cooled and leaves have started slowly turning.

I’d have moments when the air would soothe me and remind me of being a kid. When the scent of leaves or a crisp breeze aligned my soul. But those moments felt so hard to hold on to. It felt like every time I felt a sense of peace it gave way to frustration and a real feeling of survival.

I reached for my breath so many times this past week. I reached for my affirmations. I dug through my tool box and pulled out all the stops.

I want to clarify that I wasn’t feeling necessarily bad. Things are not bad. Things are actually quite good.

I just felt a bit thrown off.

Everything seemed to take five extra steps. All plans ended up rescheduled. A client cancelled last minute. The washing machine I needed in the laundry room was full and the drier that I put my clothes in took three transfers before I found a machine that actually worked. It took me 45 minutes to find a parking spot. That type of stuff. Connect with your breath to make it through the mundane bullshit, type of stuff.

Small potatoes, especially in relation to what’s going on in Houston or our country or the world in general, but sometimes those small potatoes can add up.

You place that on top of the daily intake of the insanity our administration is causing, sometimes shit just felt unbearable. Hopeless.

It's not though. It's not hopeless, I am sure of it. And all we can do is take one step at a time and do our part in whatever way that we can and most importantly remember to take care of ourselves.

I had to remember this. That taking care of myself is number one always. I am of no use if I am not taking care of myself.

I had to give myself a break. Allow the chaos to happen without taking me out. Allow myself to sit in boredom or sadness or anger or loneliness or whatever came up and move through it without judging too harshly.

There was a lot of breathing going on, a lot of crying, a lot of apologizing, a lot of needing to take a minute and accept where I am at and how I am feeling regardless of what month it was.

I am also fully aware that part of all of my feeling off kilter is due to large change that is happening. New beginnings. September at it’s best. The exact thing I long for and request of this season/month.

I am not fully sure of what these changes and new beginnings are. That part is not 100% clear yet. The not clear part is what sets off the anxiety. Change without clarity can be a bit off putting.

You'd think at this point of my life I'd be used to it. I've been dealing with change without clarity for....ever, really.

But man am I ready for some clarity. I would very really much like some. I will still trust and have faith and live in that place, but please please some clarity and stability would be real nice.

After a week of ups and downs, this morning I woke up and all of that anxiety felt present but truly unnecessary. I felt a jolt of inspiration and motivation. A readyness.

It is only fitting that I found out mercury goes direct today. It still blows my mind how much planetary alignment has an affect. You can call bullshit, but I can guarantee you if you pay attention to the timing of the chaos in your life in relation to mercury being in retrograde it will become undeniable.

And so finally today, only five days into my favorite month, I feel it. September has officially arrived. My new year is here and I have nothing but excitement towards it.

I am ready to delve deep into new projects and finish up old ones. To push my boundaries on what I am willing to put out into the world both creatively and personally.

To amp up my self care and work towards getting in the flow and to allow whatever change is about to happen to happen, clarity or not.

According to mystic mama who has always been on point for me, the theme for September is adjustment. This makes so much sense to me. If you've been feeling off too I suggest reading the above. It was really helpful and gave validation to how I have been feeling and even added a bit of clarity on how to move forward.

The west coast was calling. Clean air and nature and hills and beaches and palm trees and movie stars and cars and sunshine and pink/orange skies, lured me out of you and thank God.

I needed a break. A respite. I moved to Los Angeles with no real direction. Following a feeling and my love’s career and it was the best and scariest thing I ever did.

I built a life and a community and found my soul’s purpose outside of you. Away from the memories and my family and my friends and the old stories and old histories and old issues I couldn’t deal with yet.

For three years I grew away from you and it was necessary. I denied missing you and honestly for a moment I really didn’t.

I proclaimed my new life as a west coaster a Californian forever. I had found my new place in this world and was good with it.

Year three of Cali living got hard. Life got real. My body revolted. I started dreaming of fall and winter and family and friends and when an opportunity came up for us to come back to you we took it.

Apprehensively, but we knew it was right.

After three years of complete independence I was back in the bedroom of my sixteen year old self. I was thirty-one years old and living amongst the memories of my childhood. The memories of my darkness and my light and the people who I hurt and hurt me and the people who I loved who loved me. All of it. It was all there. It never left.

I was pulled into my past as an adult. I needed to face the shit in a new way and clear it and excavate it and find the goodness and healing underneath it.

I needed to write it out. Make my past my story and no longer a present in which I could pull from and live in. I needed to get it all out to heal myself, to eventually help others heal themselves. And I needed to do it in my thirties living in my sixteen year old self's bedroom.

It took a year to do the work I needed to do in order to be ready to move on.

A year to resolve to the fact that your city was still where my husband and I belonged.

A year to find the right neighborhood, the right apartment, the right time, the right everything.

It was a year of isolation and deep deep healing. A year of being stuck in the old to gain new perspective.

It was time to release that. I had learned all I needed to learn. I was ready to be present in my current life again.

About three months ago we moved back to Brooklyn. Back to coffee shops and cultural helms and beautiful buildings and homes that don’t seem to belong in a city.

I remember now the motivation I felt inside of you. The creativity you ignite in me. The tears of joy and beauty you inspire.

I remember now why I loved you before I hated you.

I think I may love you again.

New York you will always be my home even if some day in the future we part. You are my constant. My family. My womb.

You are the love that I live in and you hold me so dearly and encourage and allow me to grow.

You remind me of how strong I am, how empathetic I am, how starved for community and neighborhood I was.

You remind me of this on the day of the eclipse when neighbors on the corner call my sister and I over, my sister who I now live down the street from, to look through their glasses and share the experience of the wonder of this world we all share.

You remind me when that feeling of deep loneliness sinks into the pit of my stomach and so I walk outside and immediately am surrounded by people doing their thing and the loneliness dissipates and the reminder of why I am here becomes clear again.

You remind me when I text my friends and make dinner plans or beach plans or coffee plans and I get to reconnect with all that I left. The people who know and love me best.

I am reminded everyday why I loved you, why I’m re falling in love with you, why we moved back, why I needed space to be reminded.

The world is on fire and things are insane and everything seems doomed sometimes, but in you I am reminded of the goodness of people and am given hope that things can and will get better. That society is capable of being better than we have been in the past. That progress is possible.

I have never been so grateful for the luck of having been born in you.

I sit amongst these blank spaces and unpacked boxes and temporary pieces of furniture and breathe. We are making a home and a home takes patience. Patience for time and money and the prayer for a combination of both at once.

We finish a corner, a section, a wall, and live. We paint a room and live. We stuff leftover items in a closet amongst unorganized chaos shut the door, and live.

We are making a home and a home takes patience.

I feel silly caring as much as I do about the look and the feel of the place in which I reside, especially now while the world is on fire and caring about the material seems selfish on a whole new level. But I care. I care a lot. I like pretty and warm and welcoming and inspiring and creative and fun and I want where I live to be all of those things and more.

I find comfort in a well put together home.

I find comfort in beauty.

When I was a teenager I stopped caring about aesthetics. It was too painful because I had stopped caring about life.

I showered only when necessary. Threw on the same giant jeans and giant t-shirt. Cut giant knot balls out of my hair from my lack of washing and brushing it.

I couldn’t clean. I couldn’t pick up after myself. I hid under layers and garbage and bad hygiene.

I was pining for a different life. A more beautiful life, but I felt paralyzed.

When I hung out with friends, I’d encourage them to re-arrange their rooms or put on fashion shows, so I could help them decorate and pick out outfits.

They were allowed beauty, not me. And as long as I could live vicariously through it, I could trick myself for a moment into believing that was enough.

I ached for beauty and I wanted it in all of it’s forms, but I masked it and denied myself in every way possible.

Beauty meant effort and effort meant living and I didn’t know how to do that quite yet. I didn’t know how to admit that beauty lived inside me and around me and existed the entire time I did everything in my power to squelch it.

When I started coming into my own, people often commented how shocked they were by my beauty. They couldn’t believe that this whole time I was actually beautiful. Well, me neither and uhhh thanks???

There is a lot to say about that.

A lot of problematic stuff that comes along with that.

I could rip it apart and analyze and discuss the issues with a culture that sees a woman or human as beautiful only once they drop some pounds and put more care into their appearance.

Absolutely that is an issue. But that is for another post on another day.

The truth is, what people were seeing wasn’t weight loss or better clothes it was the real me peeking through. Because when I made the decision that it was time to put myself out into the world and stop hiding my light, my beauty, was finally available for others and myself to see.

I little by little stopped being so afraid of it.

I came to rely on it and need it.

In my home. In my self care. In the way that I presented myself. In my words. In my everything.

I had ached for beauty for the entirety of my life and now that I was giving myself permission to have a little, I found myself needing more and more. I had been starved.

Aesthetics can be bullshit for sure. But they can also be an outward representation of how we feel about ourselves. Not just on our person but in our living space. In the environments we steep ourselves in. The content we take in. The people we surround ourselves with. The lives we create.

For someone like me who spent years hiding and denying and drowning beauty in all forms, it was/is important.

Beauty is nature and love and vibrant colors and laughter and hugs and confidence and a warm meal. And yes it can also be clothing and hygiene and a well put together home.

I am still learning on a personal level to allow beauty both in and out. I am still learning to believe I am deserving of it and safe in it.

There is still a layer of fear that I haven’t quite broken through yet.

There are still blank spaces and unpacked boxes and temporary furniture to breathe into and be patient with.

I am making a home within myself at the same time I make a home in our apartment. A home for my soul to live in and my life to be in.

That parallel is not lost on me as we pick out paint colors for our fairly new bedroom.

I’m writing this while laying on my couch with a an ice pack on my back, trying to see how hilarious it is that the body works in the way that it does, so I can turn my tears into laughter.

A week ago my pelvis/back went out for the first time in a year. After a weekend of rest and short walks and real moments of happiness and fun I was more or less back into place. When my pelvis goes out, I go crooked, so in order for me to be in shape enough to be fully functional I need to be balanced. My spine straight. My pelvis popped back in. In order to heal I need a mix of rest and movement. Easy movement.

Come Monday, I was feeling a lot better, albeit a little crooked, but I could sit longer and stand longer and take longer walks than I had been able to days before. I was on the up and up. And then Tuesday I wrote that post about my issues with sex and dissociating and ignoring my lower half. My tongue went numb. My breath was labored. And the next morning I woke up and my pelvis was out again.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to me. I am highly somatic and always have been. My emotions come through my body. And even though I know all of this, it was still a shock. An angry and frustrating shock.

That post was A LOT for me to handle. The response was amazing and beautiful. The release was amazing and beautiful. And yet, my body responded otherwise. This is what happens when you spend your whole life dissociating. It is easy for my body to have a mind of it’s own, because I have only recently, within the last couple of years, started to have a real dialogue with it.

For all of my life, I learned through pain. Emotional and physical. I am ready for that to be over. I am ready to learn through joy and peace. I no longer need chaos and loneliness and depression and severe physical pain or illness to learn my lessons. I embrace and accept that, that is what is happening right now. I give my pain a nod of gratitude for all it has taught me and is teaching me. I am doing my best to listen and learn what it wants me to know. And, I am ready to move on.

Pain no longer serves me in the way it has in the past. I don’t need to be knocked out and stuck on a couch crying. I am ready to be in my life. Experience life. Feel life. And I am ready to do that without needing to hit rock bottom first.

With all of that said it still amazes me how the body works. I may not know what it needs yet. I may not be able to hear fully yet. But still, it is pretty awe inspiring that I put a blog post out dealing with sex and not being in my body, and my body responded, my PELVIS responded loudly.

I am not sure what she wants or needs. I have asked her every day. Begged and pleaded for her to speak up in a softer way. In a way that I can listen and take in and hear, so I may move forward. I haven’t heard back yet, so I am doing what I know.

I booked an appointment with my healer. I am searching for doctors (any and all recommendations of dr’s with a holistic lean in NYC that take insurance are appreciated). I am doing my PT exercises daily. I am taking small walks. I am trying out Tapping. And I am writing and speaking out my emotions so they don’t get stuck.

I was hesitant about writing this post because I don’t want everything I put out to seem negative, but this isn’t negative, this is my healing path. It doesn’t serve me or anyone else to hide what it looks like.

My body responding in the way that it did only means that it is listening. That old ways are having a hard time with me moving on from them. I get it. So, thank you old way. Thank you for all that you do and all that you have done. You will always be an option I can go back to if necessary, so don’t fret, I am not throwing you away or discarding you. But it is time for a new way to come forward. I am ready for that now.

The first time I heard the word “dissociate” was when I was living in a treatment center in Florida. We were in group therapy and another girl was talking about how when she would have sex she would leave her body. I didn’t understand it. How does one leave their body? Can I do that? Will I do that?

When I got home I talked to my mom about it and she explained it deeper. “It’s when you get so scared and unable to handle a situation that you leave yourself and are hovering over watching but not present. It happens to a lot of sexual abuse survivors”

To me it sounded like a magic power. You mean you can leave? You don’t have to be there? I hope when I have sex that I am able to leave my body. I don’t want to be there for that.

The more group therapy I did, the more hospitals and abused women I was around, the more I realized people thought of dissociating as a negative thing. Oh you mean I’m not supposed to want that?

When sex became a thing that was a real potential of happening in my life the word dissociate bounced around my head. Will it happen to me? Will I be there? Can I handle it?

When sex happened for the first time I didn’t float above myself. I certainly wasn’t present. But no way in hell did I want to look at what was happening from a vantage point. I loved Ben, but I just wanted to get it done and over with. A check I could mark next to the long list of things that I didn’t do until I was in my twenties. Ok great, sex happened. Now I no longer have to consider myself a virgin.

I’ve been kissed- check

I have a boyfriend- check

I’ve had sex- check

It was an item on my grocery list.

When sex became a thing that I was scared of and uncomfortable with, I became angry and upset with God and myself. I loved Ben. I felt safe with Ben. He never pressured me or asked more of me than what I could give. I was in a real relationship where I could be myself and take my time and not worry. So how come almost every time I had sex, or even thought of sex, I’d disappear or cry or shake or hide.

I thought for certain Ben was going to leave me. I thought for certain I was damaged goods who could never enjoy that part of her life. I didn’t have the right to be this scared. I don’t remember my abuse. I don’t know if it is something that happened to me or that I witnessed. I lived in communities for months on end surrounded by people who were brutally raped for years. They had the right to be scared. Not me.

Ben deserved better and I didn’t deserve him. I was damaged and the worst kind of damaged, a damage with no real reason behind it. He should be with someone who can give him what he needs. Someone healthy and whole. I needed to fix this.

When I searched for the fix in yoga I couldn’t understand why I was unable to connect to my body, no matter how hard I tried. I thought I was a failure. Everyone says this is the way to build a mind body connection! Everyone says yoga works and yoga is THE THING that makes it better. How is it that everyone is coming out of this class saying how much they can FEEL? I am numb and struggling and in pain. My body is damaged. I will never be good enough.

When I went to a psychic to seek out why for the life of me I couldn’t get into my body I got yelled at. “You’ve given your body up! You are not in there. Entities have filled your body!! You have given them permission to live inside you! Lay down now, I have to clear this out.” So I lay there and thought about Veronica Mars and her love interest Logan because that was what I was obsessing about at that time. When she called me out of it I felt a bit better “I cleared it out, now stop giving your power away.”

On the way home I called Ben, “I feel like I’m in my body for the first time!! It’s amazing!!” When I hung up the fear kicked in. Okay but how do I stay here? What if they come back in? What if I lose this? The next morning I woke up and couldn’t feel again.

When yoga started to become painful and my teachers concerned or frustrated one of my mentors told me to start “dry brushing” every morning. “Wake up your body! Start to feel!” When she went to work on me and touched my upper thigh and stomach I contracted.

“Oh yeah, I can’t handle being touched there, also it’s still numb from my surgery.”

“Oh honey, you need to be touched! Let Ben touch you!”

When I let Ben touch me I cringed and cried and didn’t understand what was happening.

When I started to see my meditation teacher, a man, he went through a practice with me. “I want you to bring up each part of your body, do you feel it?” to every part I said yes. I could feel it. “Well that was actually way better than I had thought. I’ve seen way worse. You aren’t as damaged as you allow yourself to believe.”

When my pelvis gave out and caused me to be bedridden, taking movement away from me, the one thing I considered my “medicine” I was angry. I KEEP TRYING TO HEAL THIS AND NOW I CAN’T MOVE!!!

When it kept happening again and again and again every month and I officially had to stop yoga I was livid. Why? Why is this happening? Why can’t I be normal and be in my body and have sex and enjoy life? Why am I constantly battling myself? I hate this. I hate my body. I am damaged and fat and never good enough and will never heal.

When I started working with my healer and she taught me I needed to accept myself, all of me, I wanted to scream at her, but I listened and used the tools she gave me. The meditations. The affirmations. The mindful eating practices. The breathwork. The calling my soul into my body every day. Slowly I started to feel myself. It was tiny progress but progress.

When I did the photoshoot for refinery29 and spent a full day mostly naked being photographed. I cried and cried and cried. Slowly I started to feel more. Small progress but progress.

When I did more acceptance work and committed to loving myself even though it was hard and I still fell into depression every other day, I kept going because I was witnessing myself continue to progress. I no longer had yoga. I no longer went to a meditation teacher. I spoke to my healer once every six months. I was on my own and I was doing it.

When it was time for me to rewrite my book and relive my story while living in one of the houses where so many of the events I was writing about took place. I faced myself. I faced my family. My relationship with my mom, my dad, my parents divorce, my sister, past unrequited loves. I faced the things I avoided in all other versions. As I faced these events and started to shed, I started to feel more and it was painful, but I was feeling. More progress.

When I got lost in the Norwegian teen show SKAM, so much so that I was barely existing beyond my computer screen, the thing that I have always known but rarely dealt with, hit me hard.

I have been dissociating for as long as I can remember. I never floated above and watched myself. That definition of it confused me to the point that I didn't realize it was what I was doing.

I dissociated by disappearing into other people’s lives. Books, TV, movies, friends, other patients in the hospitals I lived in. I left my body and took residence in stories. I lived in my head and my heart but never my body.

Never my body.

I had moments where I felt inside of myself. When I started running, back when I thought losing weight was the most important thing I could do in life. In the rare yoga class, when I let myself stop judging and comparing and forcing. In deep meditations. And most importantly when my pelvis gave out and my body screamed at me in fury to pay attention to it.

It is no coincidence that the areas that remained numb after my skin removal surgery were surrounding my pelvis. It is no coincidence that that was the location of my chronic injury. It is no coincidence that when I stress out that is where I feel pain. That now that I am working on healing, that is where I need to build strength.

Even when I finally started feeling in my body I still avoided my lower half. I have been avoiding it my whole life.

I am an innately sexual person. It is hard for me even to write that because it is hard for me to think of myself as sexual in any way. It is true though. Sex is a weird and scary and hyped up and vulnerable and emotional and loving and crazy and odd and beautiful thing that is sold to us as something that we should be okay with from the get go.

But if you’ve never learned how to be present, how to be in your body, how do you get to a place of real pleasure?

I have been thinking about this and the act of dissociating for a few months now. It is in the forefront of my head because it is the missing link in my healing. I have been told I need to be a warrior, I have been told I need to be softer. I did both of those things. But when I have been told to be present, I’d shake my head and scoff. That’s not possible for me. I don’t know how to do that.

I have been searching for and fighting for happiness and healing for over a decade now. I am thirty-two and I am just now realizing what I have been told all along, that the key to all of this is presence. Not just feeling good. Not just acceptance. But presence.

If I am present then I can live in the trust and have faith and feel good and be in love. If I am present I can enjoy things, even sex. I don’t have to worry, because I am there. I have shown up. I am in my own power because I am myself fully.

I am still new to this. Being myself and in my body still scares me. Escapism is still easy and the first place I think to go. But I'm working on it. I am growing and healing and feeling more and more every day.

Healing comes in stages. You have to clear things in order for the next step to present itself. This is my next step and it is the biggest one yet. And like everything else there will be peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys and I will fall and get up again and learn more each time.

I am not damaged. I am worthy of living. I am worthy of happiness. I am worthy of Ben. I have the right to feel fear when I feel it. Whatever abuse occurred or didn’t occur doesn’t matter because that is not in my present. I don’t need to remember things in order to have the right to feel a certain way.

I forgive that child who learned that escaping life was protection. That hiding in food and stories and drama was the only way to make it through to the next day. I forgive the teen who fell consequence to all this hiding, so much so that she tried to find the next most permanent level of escape, death. I forgive the adult who on her healing path found escapism in wellness and diets and exercise. I forgive and I thank all the versions of myself.

All of the things I have done in order to escape came from a place of good. I get that now. I hear it. And to my surprise it is my body that told it to me.

It was really scary for me to decide to share this. I don’t like talking about my sex life or my issues with sex or anything involving that area of my life. But I just finished reading Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton and she called me the fuck out and spoke so raw and real about dissociating both in life and sex. I felt like I needed to at least write this and then decide whether or not I am going to share. If you are reading this than I clearly chose the latter.

It should also be said that Ben has always been the most loving, patient, supportive, amazing partner. I am so lucky and thankful for him and grateful that he puts up with my need to share some of the most personal things about our life. He not only supports it he encourages it. He knows how important it is.

Sharing has always been one of the ways I heal. It removes the power. I know I am not alone in this issue. And maybe if I share it I can let someone else know they aren’t alone either. Maybe it will help someone in the same way writing it and putting it out there is helping me.

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my manuscript. I’ve been in editing brain for about a year now. The most I have been able to write, outside of this project, has been an instagram post. It’s all I have had the energy for, including surrounding my coaching career. I’ve worked weekly with the client I have and said yes to the one offs and speaking opportunities that have come my way, but beyond that I have had no energy to develop it. Every piece of me has been going into this book.

I don’t know how people do this when they have a full time job. I am beyond privileged to be given the time to make my art and heal. I know this. Trust, I know this. It is not something I take lightly or for granted. I fight off the guilt I have around it almost daily.

Last week was the first week since February that I haven’t had my book to work on. I felt lost, confused, and had no idea what to do next. Like, actually no idea. I got my period and felt overwhelmed by literally everything. I had a session with a client, reached out to some people who I had been putting off reaching out to and then I fell apart.

My head was spinning.

What can I do? What do I do? How do I move forward now? How do I make money? How do I get clients? What if she hates my book and doesn’t sign me and then I’m back to square one? What if I’m lonely and confused and depressed and in pain and feel like this forever? What if I ruin this new beginning for us and bring all my shit into this apartment and fall apart like I do everywhere else? What if my friends hate me and Ben leaves me and I never find real happiness or success and die?

These thoughts consumed me. I barely slept and felt completely paralyzed by my anxiety and depression. I cried and got angry and did everything possible to numb the fuck out. Then, in the middle of spiraling, my pelvis/back went out for the first time in over a year. And there I was again, crooked, stuck on the couch or the bed, unable to get to the bathroom or walk by myself. And I knew. I got it. I heard it. My body screaming at me, to chill the fuck out, everything is okay. Everything is MORE than okay. In fact, things are the best they have been in a long time.

I, in this forced stillness, could hear again. Without all of the distractions I was creating, the worry eased and my inner voice came through.

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Be still for a second. This is not forever. The answer is coming. The next step will present itself. No need to panic. Take things one moment at a time. Do the next right thing. Be grateful for all of the insanely incredible things you have in your life right now. Allow yourself to feel this. Do you realize how much BIGNESS JUST HAPPENED GIRL? This is normal.

THIS IS NORMAL.

In the last month and a half we moved back to Brooklyn, I turned 32, finished the most comprehensive intense edit of my manuscript, and sent it in. So many new beginnings and terrifying endings all at once.

It is okay for me to have a moment of confusion and overwhelm and fear. To fall apart for a minute. Because at this point in my healing I know myself enough to know that a minute is all it will be. I will pull myself up and out and rise to the occasion. I will do what I can and trust and have faith that whatever the next step is will show up and I will be right there to meet it, ready to take it on.

I am okay. Everything is okay. Everything is MORE than okay.

Until a clear next step presents itself I am going to take this week to do what I know and challenge myself to start writing outside of my book again. I have a new project I am ready to begin and my blog has been neglected for way too long. It’s time.

My intention is to write every day this week, whether I post it or not is to be determined. Bare with me, it’s been a while. My voice feels a bit shaky, I feel a bit shaky. I am not sure what I am ready and willing to share. Although let’s be real, knowing me it will probably be most everything. Oversharing is my natural state of being.

I have no idea if anyone will read this or the posts that follow, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is I am showing up and doing it. And that my friends, is all I can do. Show up, have faith, face fears, and take care of myself the best way I know how.

All my love and support to those of you feeling all the intensity of late. From the conversations I have had, I know I’m not alone in it. It's been a weird and crazy time for most people I know. Writing and sharing is one of the many ways I take care of myself during times like these. I encourage you to find something that works for you. Even if it's just taking a shower or sitting and breathing for a minute. Not everyone needs to heal in public like I do. Clearly there are some attention issues up in here. Whatever, I've embraced it. But, hey if you feel called to it, go type something up. Maybe you share it, maybe you don't. Regardless, writing helps. I promise.

Yesterday was the year anniversary of Ben and I moving back to NY. It’s been a weird year. So much has happened and yet it feels like we’ve only been here for a short time. Sometimes I still feel like we’re only visiting and that our apartment in LA is where we actually live.

Being back in NY has been bizarre and surreal and uncertain. It's also been beautiful and good and fun. But mostly it’s been weird.

Maybe it's the fact that the anniversary just came up, but both Ben and I have been having major heart pangs for LA lately. We are still figuring it all out here. Re-building our east coast lives. After three years of building our west coast lives, doing it all over again feels exhausting and frustrating at times.

We’ve both been dealt opportunities and major changes recently. Which is both exciting and scary. It is also truly because of moving back that these things are happening for us. There is no denying that, no matter how much we miss warm weather, palm trees, our friends, and a city you can drive in.

With that said, we’re ready to move forward and move off of this island, out of my childhood home/hometown. We don’t know where we’re going to live. We don’t know where we even want to live. We don’t know much of anything right now.

Long Island was a safe landing spot for us when we got back. I am so grateful to my mom for lending us her home to make ours while we needed it. But you know what makes writing about your past hard to separate emotionally from? Living in the house where you lived half of that past.

You’d think that the seventh time writing this book would be easier. That the emotional response to writing about the past that I’ve been writing about for close to a decade wouldn’t be so intense, no matter where I lived. I sure thought it would be. Boy, was I wrong.

It’s been a challenge not to get sucked into and overwhelmed by the feelings that come up while I’m writing when I’m sitting in the corner where my first suicide attempt took place. Seeing all the landmarks from these life stories on a daily basis is tough. Tough but necessary.

It’s clear to me that I am meant to be here while I do this, for now at least. There are issues and people and places I need to handle my shit around. Heal. Clear out. And in order to do that I had to be in the thick of it.

I couldn’t do this accurately if we still lived in LA, or even if we lived in the city. I needed to be in it completely. It’s taken a lot for me to come around on that.

But now that I am more in the editing stages of things I’m about ready to go. It’s not healthy for me to live here. I am pining for a true shedding of these events and places. I know one thing for certain-- wherever and whenever this next move takes place it must be to move forward not to run away.

I don’t know where we are going to land next. To be completely honest nothing in NY feels right to either of us. Maybe that’s just because it hasn’t been the right time to move yet. It still isn’t the right time, but it’s getting close. Going back to Brooklyn feels off, moving to Jersey city, or uptown, or any of the other neighborhoods that we can realistically afford feel weird too.

I have no idea what is going to happen and that’s okay. I know that when it is right I will know. I don’t need to worry or stress. I just need to be. Another important lesson for me to learn.

I have spent so much of my life living in the past or grasping for my future. At different times both of those things were necessary. I needed to be vividly dreaming about my future in order to gain one, I needed to be sitting in the feelings of my past in order to heal it.

It’s no longer useful for me now. More than ever it is time to truly learn to be present. To use my tools. To get back into my meditation practice. To take care of myself. Move my body. Journal. Remind myself that I am here and okay and good in this exact moment. Trust trust trust and know that everything happens in divine timing and I don’t need to fight so hard to figure things out.

The time has come again for me to soften and just do.

As for my past, it will of course still have a bit of a hold on me while I finish up this book. I truly hope it’s for the last time. At least at this level of intensity.

I’m ready to close this chapter. For the story, my story, to be just that. For my story to be used in order to help others begin to heal their past or start their future. Or to finally find a connection they’d been missing.

I’m ready to release my pain around my past and transmute it into something beautiful and useful.

In the meantime I am excited to get to know and accept myself more. To learn how to be present and enjoy my present. Right now, as is.

This is a tough one to learn but as always I am ready and willing to do the tough work. It is always worth it.

To those of you out there struggling with this as well, all my love and support forever and ever.

I am coming to terms with my avoidance tactics of late. In the air of pure acceptance which I know as fact to be the pathway to all healing and all love, I am working to accept this part of myself.

The procrastination and tendency to fall into discouragement part. The searching all of the internet to find something to divert my attention. Clean the house. Find a new show to binge. Spend hours looking for new music. New recipes. New ways to decorate my home part.

I will do anything to not write. Which is hilarious because of how much I actually love writing. It is the most cathartic most healing most useful tool in my toolbox. And yet it is the number one thing I avoid doing.

Yesterday I was reminded by a friend about the book, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. If you are a writer or creator of any kind this is required reading. If you are like me and need to be reminded over and over again of his genius do yourself a favor and get the audiobook and play it on repeat forever and ever.

In, “The War of Art” Steven Pressfield talks about resistance. Resistance is what all creators battle, all writers. Resistance shows up in the form of excuses and procrastination and reasons why you can’t you can’t you can’t. All of the bullshit that we tell ourselves to keep ourselves from doing what we are meant to. Resistance my loves is fear.

My friend asked me what being in the state of resistance is doing for me. Because here is the thing. Whenever we are in refusal to face our fears. Whenever we choose the comfortable lessor, the smaller self, it is because it is serving us in some way.

So what are my fears serving me? What is this resistance serving me?

Well not writing, not allowing myself to sit in it, to really delve as deep as I want to go, to finish what I started, allows me to stay comfortably uncomfortable in my old story. It allows me to hold on to my notion that I am not good enough or talented enough or beautiful enough or skinny enough to be successful. It allows me to not get burned or rejected. It allows me to cry about how long things take and how I’ve been trying trying trying for seven years with this project without seeing the results I want. It allows me to self pity about false starts and to stay in the story that true success doesn’t happen for me and that I am not worthy of being seen. Once again finding myself in the, everyone else but me mindset I know so well.

Most importantly staying in the fear allows me to be stuck and hidden.

Yesterday in a session with a new client I found myself called to give her a mantra that was given to me by my healer when we first started working together years ago. It is the mantra I have used the most. The mantra I have had to repeat over and over and over again and as soon as I think I’m getting it am reminded there is a lot of healing to do in this area so I bring it back to my forefront, back into my meditations, back into my journal, and back onto post-its all over my home. It is a mantra not just needed by my client right now but by me.

IT IS SAFE FOR ME TO BE SEEN, HEARD, AND RECOGNIZED.

Word! Right? I know.

You would think, that someone like me who shares her story to all of the interwebs, would not have to keep reminding herself of this. But here is the truth, I share because it is my biggest fear. I share and force myself to be seen, because all I want to do is hide.

I am most comfortable in my bed under my covers watching other people’s lives play out on a screen or the page. I am most comfortable in my home in my pajamas. I am most comfortable hidden. I am most comfortable hidden because hiding is painful and I am most comfortable in pain. Truth.

The only way, ONLY WAY, to move through a fear is to face it. To push yourself little by little out of your comfort zone. I know this and am shown this time and time and time again.

I have to share. I have to write. I have to allow others to take pictures of me. I have to tell my truth. I have to be seen. I have to work towards happiness and feeling good. I have to finish re-writing my memoir yet again and trust that this time it will reach the large audience who needs it. I have to strive for and allow great success to grace my life. I have to step into my role as teacher, guide, coach, healer, truth teller. I have to believe in myself and my abilities. I have to trust God, Goddess, the Universe, the Divine whatever verbiage makes you comfortable reading. I have to because these are my biggest fears.

IT IS SAFE FOR ME TO BE SEEN, HEARD, AND RECOGNIZED.

It is safe because I am worthy. I am good enough. I am more than enough.

So here I am, writing a blog post for this first time in over a month as a form of resistance because I should be working on that chapter I’ve been neglecting for a week. But like I said, writing is my best tool for healing and writing this post admitting my truth in hopes to inspire others to admit theirs, well that’s some kind of pro-active resistance, right? So, progress.

Accept who you are and work with it. Done done doing.

Back to work folks. I’ve missed you. And hopefully I’ll be back here regularly again if not now then soon.

Magic is happening in my life right now. Like real deal magic and I am so excited to eventually be able to share.

Dreams are becoming realized. Efforts are being rewarded. The work is working, and I both believe it and can’t believe it at the same time. Mostly I’m just fucking grateful. So grateful. All of it, whatever it ends up manifesting into, will be worth the wait. Of that I am sure.

I am being given a second, third, fourth chance to tidy up my past. To sweep up the left over dirt. To love it, learn more lessons, to feel the pain one last time, to tie up all loose ends, to find closure, and finally hopefully fingers crossed put it to rest. And good lord, I have never been so ready or up for the task.

Timing is everything.

In one of the first sessions I had with my healer years ago, she told me to take off the cloak of my old story every day when I left the house. I have to be honest, I didn’t really do it. I was too scared to let it go. I genuinely was not ready.

I am ready now.

Oh boy, how I am ready.

On the phone with a potential client yesterday I said to her something to the effect of, This healing work happens little by little, you have to be patient, because one day you will wake up and be so surprised by where you are. You will say to yourself, “Oh my god I can’t believe it, all of this worked and I right where I dreamt I would be.”

It is the god’s honest truth. I am surprised every day by my growth. I am surprised every day by my healing. I am surprised every day by my connection to spirit. I am surprised every day by how much I am loving myself. Not just learning how, but actually doing. I am surprised every day by the little miracles. And am SO surprised by the big ones.

Big miracles are happening.

I knew they would. I always knew. And now they are showing up and I still can’t believe it.

I have a good amount of work ahead of me. I may drop off from social media a bit. I may not be as consistent with my blogging for a little while. Know it’s for good reason. Beautiful reason. Exciting and amazing and mind blowing reason.

I will be back. I may never even leave. I have no idea how all of this will play out.

What I do know is now more than ever I am being asked to step into my bigness and because of that, self care is number one. Reeling in and not sharing as much may be part of it too. It’s hard to tell yet. But when I know, I will know.

I have been feeling beyond exhausted. Happy. Very happy. Joyful even. But super tired. I have been going to bed at legit 9:30 almost every night. Every day after I pick up Ben from the train I just want to go to sleep.

I have to protect my energy. I see that now. I also embrace the tired. It’s okay. It’s not bad. There is nothing wrong with me. It just is, right now. And I get why. So I’ll sleep more. Fine by me. I love sleep.

I am also committed to deepening my energetic practices. Strengthening my boundaries. Understanding clear ways to truly take care of myself in this area. Which, is great because it’s something I wanted to learn more about anyway. So here is my excuse. Don’t you love when shit like this lines up? I do.

Mercury Retro is almost over the full harvest moon lunar eclipse is tonight. And I have never been so grateful to be tapped into the knowledge of what that means for me.

May I suggest taking a look at what is happening for you my loves? May I suggest checking your energy level? Amping up your self care practice. Meditating more and shouting out into the world all that you are grateful for and all that you want?

It is a powerful time right now.

Can you feel it? Can you see all the little miracles in your life? The big ones?

I know you don’t believe me. But if I remember correctly there is a little light inside you that you can barely see but know is there.

A tiny light that keeps you going, and hoping, and working, and not giving up even when it seems like you are. Even when you want it all to end and try to make it so, you still know somewhere deep down that there is hope. That you have a future worth fighting for.

I’m here to tell you that little inkling was right.

Your future will be bright.

Sure more shit will come, there will always be some struggle, but you will get through it and grow and realize you are so incredibly ridiculously strong.

Nothing, nothing can break you down, because you are committed to always grow and learn and evolve and strive for happiness. And you will find it.

You my love will stop bingeing. Yes, it’s true. You will actually stop using food to abuse yourself and find peace with it.

You won’t believe this next part but I swear it will be life changing for you.

One day you will be able to look at your eating disorder as a gift, a friend even.

A misguided friend who didn’t know she was doing harm and was just trying to protect you. A friend who didn’t understand or have the tools to do it another way.

You will forgive that friend. After all, the intention was there, and the intention was good.

She just didn’t know any better and how can you blame her, she was seven years old and food was the easiest means to heal the pain in that moment. She didn’t know it would get out of control. She didn’t know it would take over. She just thought she was helping.

I swear, forgiving her will be the most liberating relieving thing you ever do and will be the start to your real healing and lead to what I’m going to tell you next.

You dear girl, will actually start to love yourself, and omg you won’t believe this, you won’t, I know it, but I swear it’s the truth, it won’t be because of weight loss.

I know you can’t believe it. I see you shaking your head. I see you! I know it. But ready, you will love yourself without condition!

There will actually truly be no more “until I get….”.

You will actually be able to stop waiting and find self love in the present, with who you are, with where your life is. I know it sounds ridiculously impossible. But I swear it’s true.

You will find health too. Absolutely.

But the health won’t come when you think it will. It is a journey.

A crazy up and down journey.

There will be moments of fun, and heartache, and love, and pain, and laughter, and tears, and real moments of bliss.

You will be shocked and surprised about how you come to where you end up and excited that where you end up is only going to keep growing keep evolving keep moving forward.

There will be disappointments and frustrations and amazing experiences and moments of awe.

You will surprise yourself constantly. Because you little girl are a brave one.

You will do things you thought would embarrass the shit out of you. That embarrassment will still be there at first for sure, but soon you will get to a place of honoring yourself so much that you almost don’t give a fuck what other people think. And I have a feeling dear one that someday you actually won’t give a fuck, and it will be so liberating and beautiful. Just like you.

Oh child, I know you hurt. I know you can’t see the way out. I’m here to tell you that you sure as hell find one.

You will fight for your life. You will become a warrior. And then you will be asked to soften when fighting no longer serves you.

And you will do that too and find yourself working towards being in the flow of life. And it will be hard and you will be asked to put your defenses down. And it will be scary. But it will be worth it.

I love you little one. I love you with all my heart and I will be there beside you the whole way.